


And suddenly I wasn't me without you by my side

by Stiiliinsski



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Best Friends, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-03-08 22:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13467978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stiiliinsski/pseuds/Stiiliinsski
Summary: She settles in their lives slowly with her snorts, quips and what Peter thinks of as empty insults without any venom in them. She joins their debates and helps settle their arguments (“I’m going to side with Leeds, Parker, because what you’re saying is utterly stupid and also, I don’t like your shirt today.”)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically going to be a lot of prompts incorporated in one story. So if you have any prompts that you'd like me to put in, just send them.  
> Also, following chapters will be longer.  
> Also, I don't own any of the characters.  
> I'm looking for a Beta, so please, contact me if you're interested.

She moves to sit next to them slowly, gradually. At first, there’s a whole table separating them, only her occasional quips letting them know she was there. Him and Ned would be talking and then, suddenly, she’d snort or say something (“Too late. You guys are losers.”) and they’d look at her, this girl whose nose is always in a book, looking at them with the most bored expression on her face he’s ever seen.  

She moves to the furthest seat on the table between them that was usually empty. He doesn’t even notice until one day he’s answering Ned’s questions about his suit and web shooters and what not and Peter’s desperately trying to shush him.  (“Hey, dweebs. What are you whispering about?”) They freeze, Ned’s mouth is open and Peter’s stumbling over his words like a three year old (“I… um… not… we’re…”) and she just shakes her head before returning to her book. (“Loser.”)

It’s after decathlon that she sits on the seat right next to their table. Ned and him are already there and he’s watching Liz walk into the cafeteria when she puts her plate on the table, sound of it slamming on the table startling him. (“You have spaghetti on your shirt, Parker.”). He looks down, pulling on the white material a little, trying to see, when she laughs. (“Ha!”) It’s only then, as she’s opening her book and shaking her head that he realizes that he’s eating pizza and not spaghetti.

The day after she’s appointed team captain she takes a seat at their table. Ned stops talking and he looks up. She’s stepping over the bench, her books and mug already at the table. She looks up, mid sitting down, and raises one eyebrow. (“What?”) He shakes his head frantically. (“N-nothing.”) And she sits down, ignoring the silence. (“If you don’t stop staring at me, I’m going to castrate you.”) Ned’s eyes widen and he starts talking about their new Lego project, drawing him into a conversation. He relaxes slowly and when he secretly looks at her she has a small, almost nonexistent, smile on her lips. (“Castrate, Parker.”), she says when she notices him looking at her, her brown eyes meeting his and he realizes he’s staring.

She settles in their lives slowly with her snorts, quips and what Peter thinks of as empty insults without any venom in them. She joins their debates and helps settle their arguments (“I’m going to side with Leeds, Parker, because what you’re saying is utterly stupid and also, I don’t like your shirt today.”)

There are days when she doesn’t say anything and just glares at him when he says hello in a voice that she once described as “that stupid bird from Cinderella”. He always asks her if she’s okay on those days when they are leaving the cafeteria, Ned few steps in front of them. She always punches him in the shoulder and glares at him, but there’s never any strength in her punch on those days and her eyes just look tired instead of annoyed.

There are days when they manage to make her laugh. Once, she even giggles before trying to disguise it with a cough. He laughs and she punches him in the shoulder so hard his eyes would water if he wasn’t who he was. (“Shut up, loser.”), she says and he shakes his head, but still looks at her fondly.

She settles in their lives and becomes a constant and Peter doesn’t mind one bit.


	2. Movie night night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (“We have an emergency.” “Dweb?” “Aunt May isn’t home and I’m trying to make pizza and the dough isn’t right! I can’t roll it out!” “And you’re calling me because?” “Well, you’re a…” he realizes what he’s about to say and his eyes widen in surprise, he’s happy she can’t see the sweat breaking out on his forehead. “I’m a what, Peter?” her voice is threatening, but Peter thinks he can hear a note of amusement lacing it, but still he stops talking. He closes his eyes and can imagine her looking at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re a smart person who can probably do a better job than either Ned or me.” “You’re so full of it.”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is basically going to be a lot of prompts incorporated in one story. So if you have any prompts that you'd like me to put in, just send them.
> 
> I don't own any of the characters.

Friday movie night _night_ becomes a habit after a Jurassic Park debate that occurs one Wednesday.  And at first, they have to talk Michelle into it. She always finds excuses (“No.” “Why not? We had fun last time.” “No.”). She caves after they pester her about it. Peter knows that Michelle never does anything she doesn’t want to and thinks that maybe saying no is her way of protecting herself. There’s no way he’d ever tell her that though. He appreciates all of his body parts intact.

 

„I'm telling you, first Jurassic Park is better than the second one!“ Peter exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air.

“I can’t even hear what you’re saying from all that _nonsense_ that’s leaving your mouth, Peter.” Ned said, looking at his best friend with raised eyebrows. “You’ve obviously had a concussion when you were watching it and your memory is foggy.”

“The second one doesn’t even have Sam Neill in it!”

“And we are all thankful for that.”

Peter makes a choking sigh, waving his arms around. They’ve been having this argument since yesterday evening when Peter made an offhand remark about Jurassic Park franchise coming back from the dead which prompted a discussion about original movies which led them here, sitting in a cafeteria trying to reason with one another.

“What’s up, losers.” Michelle says, setting her stack of books on the table.

“Michelle, can you please tell Ned that the first Jurassic movie is better than the second one.” Peter inquires without even saying hello.

Curly-haired girl squints, her eyes dancing between her two friends.

“No.” she finally replies before returning to her book.

“Michelle!”Peter exclaims at the same time as Ned points a finger at him and shouts: “Ha! I told you so!”

“I can’t _tell Ned_ because I haven’t seen either of those movies.”

Her sentence cuts through their voices and they stop talking, both turning to look at her.

“ _What?_ ”

“I can hook you up with an otolaryngologist if your hearing has taken a wrong turn, Parker.” She dead pans.

“How can you not have seen them? They’re classics Michelle.”

“I was busy doing literally anything else.”

“Friday?” Peter turned to Ned who solemnly nodded. “We are watching them on Friday.”

“Is 6 good for you, Michelle?” Ned looks at her, eyebrows lightly raised in question.

“Ha!” she lets out and humorless laugh. “Yeah, right.”

„C'mon, Michelle. It'll be fun.“ Peter tells her, his brown eyes widened as he looks at her. “Trust me.”

“I also trusted my mom when she told me that making friends is fun and now look where that got me.”

Peter just rolls his eyes and turns to face Ned, ignoring her jabbing comment.

“I’ll ask aunt May to make us pizza.”

“Uuh, with pineapple topping?” Ned asks, his eyes glinting excitedly.

“How are we even friends?” Peter shakes his head in mocking distress and Ned throws his crumpled napkin at him.

Ned says something in return and Peter laughs.

And Michelle looks at them from the brim of her book, hiding her smile behind old pages of the book.

 

And it’s nice, that routine. They eat pizza, always pizza. Aunt May makes it and there’s always one with pineapples and Peter always looks at Ned in disbelief as his friend devours it happily. (“How are we even friends?” he comments every time without a fault and Ned throws his napkin at him every time without fault and Michelle, Michelle always tries to hide her smile.) And then one Friday when they’re having a Godfather marathon aunt May is out with her friends and Peter tries (and fails) to make pizza himself.  First, the dough is to sticky, then it’s too hard. He calls Michelle with his voice all panicky. (“We have an emergency.” “Dweb?” “Aunt May isn’t home and I’m trying to make pizza and the dough isn’t right! I can’t roll it out!” “And you’re calling me because?” “Well, you’re a…” he realizes what he’s about to say and his eyes widen in surprise, he’s happy she can’t see the sweat breaking out on his forehead. “I’m a what, _Peter?_ ” her voice is threatening, but Peter thinks he can hear a note of amusement lacing it, but still he stops talking. He closes his eyes and can imagine her looking at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re a smart person who can probably do a better job than either Ned or me.” “You’re so full of it.”) She hangs up then and he’s left standing in the middle of the kitchen with a pout on his lips, phone in his hand and hardened dough on the table. Twenty minutes later doorbell rings and Michelle pushes inside. She threatens to throw the rock solid dough at him next time he calls her to come over just because _she’s a girl_. She barks out orders at him as she washes her hands and he even helps put pineapple slices on. (“That’s your punishment.” She laughs at the disgusted look on his face.)

In the first three months they see Jurassic park trilogy, Die hard franchise( they split it in two Fridays because Michelle complains that her eyes are going to fall out if she sees on more impossible thing. Peter has to bite his tongue from telling her that one of her best friends can literally hang from the ceiling on nothing but a tiny string.) Michelle makes them see Erin Brockovich next.  Both Peter and Ned really like it and the next day after coming back from school peter finds a book “ _The Downing Street Years“_ in his backpack. It’s memoires by Margaret Thatcher and at first he’s confused because he doesn’t get why she gave him _that_ book. They’ve never even had a conversation about The Iron Lady. But then he reads it in three days and _he gets it_. He finishes it on a Wednesday night, it’s seven minutes past midnight so technically it’s Thursday. Aunt May is already asleep and the night is quiet and he’s glad that there are no sirens going off in the night because he doesn’t know how he’d be able to stop his research on The Iron Lady and go off on _a call_. In a split of a moment he wonders whether that makes him less of a hero, but then he remembers that he’s still just a teenager, just human. He finds that she has written another book of memoires and a strategy book and he wonders if he’ll be able to find them in the library. He can barely keep his eyes open when he texts MJ ( _I read it._ ) and it’s the last thing he does before he rolls over and his breathing slows and he’s asleep in no time. 

The next morning Michelle drops “ _The path to power_ ” on the desk in front of him and he frowns for a moment before he realizes what exactly he’s looking at. And then he smiles and looks over at her in excitement and she smiles but still shakes her head ( _Loser._ ). Then he frowns again and looks back at the book because he wonders how she managed to get it that early in the morning. The library wasn’t even open when she went to school.

“How did you manage to get it so fast?” he asks, confusion written all over his face.

“I have my ways.” She doesn’t even look at him when she answers but turns the page of the book she’s reading (War and peace by Tolstoy. That’s her third book by Russian authors and when he asked her about it yesterday she told him she was on a roll. _“They’re hard books, dweb, I have to read as much of them as I can while I’m in the zone.”_  He might’ve questioned her saying she was ‘ _in the zone_ ’ but then she smiles goofily at him and he shuts his mouth because that’s the first time he’s seen that silly smile on her lips and what a sight that is.)

She sighs when he doesn’t say anything but instead keeps looking at her. She lowers her book and looks at him pointedly. “That’s my last week’s ‘on the road’ book.”

“On the road book?”

She sighs again and looks up at the ceiling as if she’ll find the answer as to why he’s still talking to her there. “Yes, my on the road book. It’s a book that I read on the bus. It’s not so hard that I won’t be able to focus from all the noise, but it’s not so light that it won’t be able to distract me from all the people and their nonsense around me. My on the road book. Happy now?”

He just nods and grins at her and she rolls her eyes before starting to read again. They don’t talk for the rest of lunch, but by the end of it Peter decides her ‘on the road book’ idea isn’t a bad one at all and thinks that maybe he’d have to find himself an ‘on the parole book’.

 

When they first start with their movie night nights Peter notices that MJ seems a little uncomfortable. It starts when she arrives. He opens the door when the bell announces her arrival and he smiles widely, but all she offers him is a timid smile. And Michelle never smiles timidly, she doesn’t do anything timidly, she always puts all of herself in everything she does, all of her boldness and fierceness. He didn’t think that word even existed in her vocabulary. (“Hi.” “Hi.” “Welcome to casa Parker.” “I won’t even dignify that with a comment.” She says and pushes through the door, shoulder-checking him in the process and he thinks that that’s more like it.)

She seems overly polite when she meets May and he wants to shake her and ask her what’s going on. (She doesn’t call neither him nor Ned a loser or dweb for the entire night and _it’s weird_.)

She sits on the far side of the couch while he sits on the other end and Ned is sprawled on the floor with his head propped on the armchair. He watches her from the corner of the eye and _it’s not creepy_. She just seems uncomfortable and stiff and he wonders whether it was a mistake that they pressured her to come. But then he, once again, remembers that no one can pressure Michelle Jones into anything and hopes that maybe next time she’ll sit a bit closer to the middle and she won’t be twitching with her fingers.

And he’s right. Next time she sits more comfortably and the next she puts her legs up on the couch and the next on his lap and Peter thinks that maybe someday her head will be resting on his shoulder and that thought startles him so much that he gets up and goes to the bathroom and watches himself with wide eyes in the mirror because _where did that thought come from?_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this took so long. I was in over my head at college and have lost the will to write. Hopefully, that'll change now! But I need your help so send me prompts!   
> Kudos and comments get me going so please, comment away!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this! Please comment if you want more and send me prompts that you want me to put in the story.You can do it here or on my Tumblr (stiliinsskii.tumblr.com).  
> Kudos and comments get me going so please, comment away!  
> I need motivation.  
> Hopefully, I'll update once a week.


End file.
